www.reviewingtheevidence.com | ILL WIND, AN, by G. N. Henson

ILL WIND, AN
by G. N. Henson
Prairie Ghost Publishing, February 2002
286 pages
$13.95
ISBN: 0971791805

Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Reading AN ILL WIND reminded me vividly of why I don't watch horror movies

or much of anything that's too scary or menacing. This is one scary book!

G.N. Henson has carefully fashioned a not-so-subtle thriller that starts

with a deceptively easy opening - a description of a tornado that drops into

Spokane, Washington, one late summer afternoon and uproots more than trees

and exposes more than damaged bricks and mortar. Some characters are

revealed to us: a young man who lives under an assumed name while he waits

for a seven-year statute of limitations to be completed. We also meet his

best friend, an easy-going , but brilliant, graduate student in psychology.

Hiding behind a public persona of benevolence and generosity is a thuggish

monster who tortures and destroys. And if there can be anyone worse than

The Monster, there is--the heartless man who steps out from the shadows to

do "things at night that no one knew about."

Henson really has a good book here! I had to stop reading at mid-point and

tackle something lighter in tone just to calm my nerves and allow me to

sleep (I finished it during daylight hours.) Perhaps those who read this

genre regularly will say "ho-hum" but I think the author has a great plot

here. He's crafted an intense story that is seamless as it builds its

suspense. Reading it was like watching a snake devour a mouse - fascinating

in its inevitability but also curiously compulsive to observe. There's a

clinical detachment, a matter-of-factness to the story elements that carried

this reader through the moments of despair. The villains are monsters and

their crimes go beyond any possible understanding, but the descriptions of

the violence are not lurid or gratuitous. The last portion of the book is

very fast and jarred me at first because of its speed; however, the major

part of the story takes place in less than one week and the speed of the

ending is appropriate to the plot. I think AN ILL WIND merits a wide

audience of readers and I certainly hope that this first novel meets with

great success.

Reviewed by Ginny Richardson, May 2002

[ Top ]

QUICK SEARCH:

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)